Direct Mail Is for Digital Marketers

Digital marketing is more personalized, customer-specific, interactive in real-time and systematic than ever before. At the same time, you see no sign of direct mail disappearing. With new technological advancements and inventions, powered with real-time reports, marketers get maximum reach in no time with both channels. Digital marketers are finding direct mail is still a relevant, timely, customer-focused and contemporary method to connect with existing customers and prospects.

Direct mail has evolved from sending just a postcard. Marketers have more than one way to enhance their mail pieces: by curating customer-specific mail content, target marketing and optimization. New ways of mailing include postcards that come alive with QR codes, high-quality images, sensory mails, direct mail with audio messages and other digitally driven options. This direct mail, when included in the core marketing strategy, can be effective and deliver ROI for all marketing campaigns.

How are digital marketers using direct mail?

Unlike digital marketing channels, direct mail’s innate feature of being in physical form has an impact on your customers and prospects because it stays with them for longer periods of time than other marketing channels.

Below are the top four reasons that justify why direct mail is still loved by new-age marketers:

Programmatic Direct Mail Marketing

Direct mail marketing plays a significant role when it comes to programmatic advertising and marketing. Programmatic marketing strategy is the algorithmic buying and selling of advertising space in real-time. During the entire process, software is used for buying, ad placing and optimizing ad inventory. The new technology enables marketers to get the best of both worlds by viewing direct mail in a live stream and tracking responses in real-time, including conversions, geography tagging and other attributes. Direct mail’s entry into programmatic marketing channels allows marketers to send personalized mail in less than a day’s time. [Editor’s note: There’s even a company that finds what products consumers view online and retargets them with direct mail offers for those products.]

Reinstate Digital Customers and Prospects

By synchronizing your direct mail campaign with your cloud marketing or CRM systems, direct mail can help you to connect with your online customers and prospects.

Metric-Driven Direct Mail Campaign

Just like digital marketing channels, using metrics and KPIs to monitor your direct mail can help you to get maximum ROI. Metrics like cost per acquisition, net response rates, gross response rates and cost per mail can be used to monitor and analyze your direct mail marketing activities.

Direct Mail Marketing Is Here to Stay!

Marketers who think digital strategy can do without direct mail campaign must reconsider: Are they missing out on something valuable that only direct mail can do?

With all of the marketing advancements, this old-school channel is still around. It’s coping with modern marketing by advancing itself, with augmented reality and more. That means direct mail can still be relevant and effective — while literally being in your customers’ hands.